ion
very trying--and if she were to get deaf the only position she had ever
filled with credit would be necessarily closed to her. What on earth did
she have to occupy her anyway if not other people's affairs?

"I can hardly believe that," she answered. "Of course he's a very
admirable young man, but it's out of the question that Molly should
worry her mind about him after he has gone and married another woman."

Her logic seemed rather feeble to Gay, but as he had told himself often
before, Kesiah never could argue.

"I hear the fellow's come out quite surprisingly. Mr. Chamberlayne tells
me he is speaking now around the neighbourhood, and he has a pretty
command of rough and ready oratory."

"I suppose that is why Molly is so anxious to hear him. She has ordered
her horse to ride over to a meeting at Piping Tree this afternoon."

"What?" He stared in amazement.

"Young Revercomb is going to speak at an open air meeting of some
kind--political, I imagine--and Molly is going to hear him."

His answer was a low whistle. "At what time?" he asked presently.

"She ordered her horse at three--the very hottest part of the day."

"Well, she'll probably have sunstroke," Gay replied, "but at any rate,
I'll not let her have it alone."

CHAPTER XI

THE RIDE TO PIPING TREE

A look of surprise came into Molly's face when she found Gay waiting for
her, but it passed quickly, and she allowed him to mount her without
a word of protest or inquiry. She had been a good rider ever since
the days when she galloped bareback on Reuben's plough horses to the
pasture, and Gay's eyes warmed to her as she rode ahead of him down the
circular drive, checkered with sunlight. Yet in spite of her prettiness,
which he had never dignified by the name of beauty, he knew that it was
no superficial accident of colour or of feature that had first caught
his fancy and finally ripened his casual interest into love. The charm
was deeper still, and resulted from something far subtler than the
attraction of her girlish freshness--from something vivid yet soft in
her look, which seemed to burn always with a tempered warmth. For need
of a better word he called this something her "soul," though he knew
that he meant, in reality, certain latent possibilities of passion which
appeared at moments to pervade not only her sensitive features, but her
whole body with a flamelike glow and mobility. While he watched her he
remembered his meeting with B